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Opel Astra GTC
May 28, 2012
OPEL’S PREVIOUS ASTRA GTC showed us that three door hatchbacks make for very sexy coupes. Its metal skin was dramatically chiseled with hard creases and sharp lines endowing it with proper street presence and if you went for the two litre turbo petrol, was a fire-breathing GTI rival too. I bought such a car immediately after a stint in one around the old Wesbank racing circuit. So I had high expectations for the new car. First things first, apart from the OPC derivative due within a year, the new GTC range is utterly devoid of a ‘hot’ version. Where the old car had a normally aspirated 1.8 litre petrol and a 1.9 litre turbo diesel supplementing its range – new GTC comes in just two flavours; 1.4 (Enjoy) and 1.6 (Sport) turbocharged petrols. Neither will set your pants on fire I’m afraid, offering 103kW (1.4 ℓ) and 132kW (1.6 ℓ) versus the old two litre’s 147kW. Conversely the new car is about 100kg heavier. A step backwards certainly if you’re looking for another GTI fighter, but still a competent machine, and now with better fuel economy and lower carbon emissions.
The new car is a safer design, far less bold than the car it replaces. Rather its form seems dictated by the strategic paring away of its five door sibling, and that’s ok since the final result is undeniably attractive. I like that the headlamps haven’t grown into a pair of boiled sweets or rake so steeply they encroach onto the windscreen. Instead they resemble the narrow-eyed stare Clint Eastwood employs before firing a salvo of rounds into a villain, a pity then that the small capacity engines can’t match his menace. The flanks see the signature Opel blade at play in the metalwork, with a second sinewy line swishing its way around the door handle then rising along its hip. This sharp line dissipates at the rear just above a modest pair of lamp clusters, each boasting great detail, including chevron-like graphics for brake and turn signals. The boot lid gets an aggressive ‘kicked up’ rear spoiler, perpendicular to the sharp crease in the metal below the rear glass. A rear diffuser intersects deeply with the bumper, alluding once again to the sporty credentials that the car hasn’t been able to display on the roads of Bethlehem. The 1.6T Sport model also gets a meaty set of 18 inch alloy hoops tucked into those gaping arches.
Hop aboard and you’ll encounter an interior on par with the five door derivative, a marked improvement over the old car. Onboard kit is comprehensive, and ergonomics are German , therefore quite good. There’s no sport button here, just flatten the clutch, twist the key in the ignition (no start button either) and select first gear from the six speed transmission then give it gas. Whether you’re in the 1.4 or 1.6, grunt is adequate and the gear selection precise, although midrange torque could be much better. In the 1.4 in particular, you have no chance of navigating speed bumps in anything other than first gear, unless you enjoy a fat wall of turbo lag on the other side. Sporty handling is derived from an independent suspension geometry consisting of the company’s HiPerStrut front and Watts link rear, and dropped 15mm lower than the five door hatch. Most of our trip was done on an arrow straight N1 highway however, with only short stints of winding road during which the suspension was compliant, but largely untested. A full road test should give us more insight into what will be the platform for one of the most powerful front wheel driven hatchbacks yet.
Ultimately, the Astra GTC is a good looking, competent coupe-cum-hatch with pleasant drivetrains. Overall packaging is easily on par (if not superior) to a similar Renault Megane Coupe, but now favours style and substance over performance. At R304000 however, we were expecting more or the latter. Bring on the OPC.
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